Category: NYC

Please Kill Me (Review)

Pedro Paramo is the book I’ve most given away. It’s a thin, easy to read, very influential novel. It will haunt you. The second book I’ve most given away is Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain’s Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk. Through a series of alternating interviews, PKM traces the history of punk. From New […]

2017: A Year Wraps and Good Riddance

Good Riddance 2017 It was a good year, but not without its challenges. The TL;DR is: mL grew more than 10 percent but is still down from its 2015 high. I co-authored and published What’s Your Bio Strategy? I moderated a panel at SynBioBeta SF17 and keynoted at Biofabricate 4 and enjoyed it. I now […]

How to Create 10,000 Jobs?

How do you create 10,000 jobs? Train 500 brewers. Originally, I was going to write: Train 10,000 teachers. Despite the overwhelming need for teachers [1], the profession currently is looked down upon in the United States and people don’t understand that if you don’t invest in education, you’re not investing in the future. (Cynically, I […]

Mobile-First Mindset: Mast Mobile Sells Innovation

An application that allows users to have a business and a personal number on one device. It’s surprising, really. That the common problem of enterprise sales people and freelancers who juggle two phones with different numbers hasn’t been resolved before. Mast Mobile is a mobile carrier that solves that neatly. And for salespeople who must […]

NSA Art Project

With the National Security Agency’s new open source face recognition API, take a selfie, upload it to their database and begin searching for your twin(s). Armed with a series of matches, create photographs and profiles based on available online data and post to your heart’s content. Bonus points for using genomic information to find your twin(s). […]

Dub: Best Dressed Chicken in Town

In my world, Dr. Alimantado (born Winston Thompson, AKA The Ital Surgeon) and his Best Dressed Chicken in Town was my introduction to reggae long before I realized the power of Catch-A-Fire-Bob-Marley, Legalize-It Peter Tosh and Roast Fish Collie Weed & Corn Bread Lee “Scratch” Perry. Public Image Limited’s Jah Wobble’s reggae-influenced thunk-punk bass, morphed into dancehall and reggaeton drilled into […]

Reading Buddies

In kindergarten, first and second grade, my reading buddies were fourth and fifth graders. I started reading to younger kids when I was in fourth, fifth. But starting in sixth grade, the assignments were made by OSIS and based on reading level and  need. I read to kids all over the City. Young kids from […]

Observation: This is Wall Street

On the train two women trade verbal insults. “…You people don’t even know how to act on the train!” “It took you ten fuckin’ minutes to get your fat fuckin’ ass off the train but I’m fine. I’m relaxed. You got issues.” “I don’t have issues.” “You’re the big fat ass. I’d beat that fuckin’ […]